Last night I went and watched the chaps named above playing just for us at Brighton Electric Studios. Despite spending most of my time and money rehearsing there over the last 8 years I’d never actually been to a gig there so I was intrigued. It turns out it was just like rehearsing there except there were more people and I didn’t have to touch an instrument myself. I felt lazy, and I liked it.

UNICORDAD VRS ROBODAD

First on were Unicorndad VRS Robodad. The benefit of having a name like that is the crowd are already sold before you hit the stage. Here is an example of a Performing Arts 101 exam essay question: “Stage costumes, discuss”. My answer to that would be “Yes please” so these guys did not leave me frustrated, the guitarist was a unicorn replete with plastic teets, drum man was a robot and included resplendent flashing lights and the bass man was, I believe, some kind of plant pot headed referee. They looked like they meant business and that’s what they gave us: Business.

It took me a couple of tracks to warm to them but that may have been no fault of theirs, I was still reeling from a Grubbs mexican burger induced food coma. Their music is as spasmodic as their outfits with jerky timing and drum clicking, but every so often pinholes of emotion flare up and stroke you before they are shooed off with another random turn of events. Very enjoyable visually and eerily. At the end of the day if you write a song about mites and look at the crowd through a unicorn’s nostrils, how can you fail?

72% MORRISEY

72% Morrisey, again, I was sold by the name alone and they didn’t disappoint, I’d checked them out on Myspace before hand and was looking forward to seeing how exactly they made all of that noise. They consist of 2 geetars and a drummer, no vocals.

It dawned on me that an instrumental band is what happens when the vocalist goes to the loo during rehearsal and the band can finally noodle and jam unhindered without the need to worry about the boring structure of pop. And you could see it on their faces: kids in a sweet shop just happy to be there and sniffing the treats. And that kind of elation and arms raised in joy feeling is fully transferable to the audience who also enjoyed their wanton abandon.

FAT BICTH

That sense of playtime continued through Fat Bicth‘s set, fun time for musicians, on stage they had a lot of facial banter and shared personal secret jokes. Who knows what they were smiling about, and who cares, it was almost voyeuristic. I’ve seen these chaps before and I will see them again. Catchy riffs and a drummer with an unhindered urge to pop a bell in to any micro second gap he can find in the rhythm. Good skills. Despite being quite an earful at times they have a pleasing tonality; Whilst the riffs are squirming and squelching underneath them. Nice peaks and troughs boys.

I’m being good were on last…. but I had to go home before them, it was past my bed time. I had never fully recovered from the burger coma.